Just when you think there's a break in the "Fast and Furious" franchise news, Vin Diesel gets on social media and drops a bombshell. 

While doing a Facebook Live chat (outside with lovely wind chimes ringing in the background), the actor revealed that Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson was not the first choice to play the Hobbs character.

“Back in the fifth film, when I was asking, ‘Who should I work with?’ the reason why we brought Dwayne Johnson into ‘Fast Five’ was because of you [the fans],” Diesel said in the video. “There was a girl named Jen Kelly who said, ‘I would love to see you guys work together on-screen,’ and so we gave a role, that was initially written for Tommy Lee Jones, but we gave it to Dwayne, and he shined in it.”

Johnson recently called out unnamed male actors as being unprofessional on the set of the upcoming "Fast and Furious" movie, "Fast 8," though days later he walked back those comments. He's been a major addition to the franchise since coming on in 2011's "Fast Five." 

It's hard to imagine Jones bringing to the table what The Rock has. But it's fun to imagine. 

"Fast 8" will feature newcomers to the franchise: Helen Mirren, Scott Eastwood, and Charlize Theron.

The movie opens April 2017. Watch Diesel's entire Facebook Live chat.

SEE ALSO: The 12 best Matthew McConaughey performances ever, ranked

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Back in the late 1990s, the coolest place to be was huddled around a Nintendo 64 playing "GoldenEye 007" with your friends. The revolutionary first-person shooter from game developer Rare laid the groundwork for the genre on consoles four years before the first "Halo" came out.

You'd think that one of the most popular and beloved games of all time would've been remade or re-released at some point, right? Well, thanks to a truckload of copyright issues, it never has.

But for one shining moment, there was hope. In 2008, Rare was working on an HD remake of "GoldenEye 007" for Xbox 360, but the game was cancelled before it could be released. Thanks to a website called Rare Thief, however, we now have an idea of what it would have looked like:

SEE ALSO: 10 best games you may have missed from the last few years

"GoldenEye 007" was developed by Rare and came out in 1997, two years after the James Bond movie it was based on. This is what it looked like at the time:

And this is what the unfinished HD remake looked like. It's not as pretty as a modern game (even by 2008 standards), but it's definitely a lot sharper than the blurry, foggy mess on N64.

Some context: In the 90s, first-person shooters were largely popular on PC. Hits like "DOOM" and "Quake" got sub-par console versions, but shooters were rarely made with consoles in mind. "GoldenEye 007" was different.

Did you know there are free games released every month on the Xbox 360 and Xbox One? It's true!

If you pay $60 annually for an Xbox Live Gold membership, you get a handful of free games every single month. The program works very similarly to Sony's PlayStation Plus program, with one significant difference: Every single game offered through Games with Gold is compatible with Xbox One.

Even if you don't own an Xbox 360, you can still download free Xbox 360 titles every month directly onto your Xbox One. And they work on the Xbox One! Voila!

Here are all the games available this September.

SEE ALSO: The future of the Xbox will probably be a lot like the iPhone

"Earthlock: Festival of Magic"

 "Earthlock: Festival of Magic" is a brand-new RPG making its debut on the Xbox One as a totally free game for Games with Gold members.

It looks like it will be reminiscent of the Japanese RPG "Final Fantasy," but with more of an animated, painterly art style.

Platforms: Xbox One

Availability: September 1 to September 30

"Assassin's Creed Chronicles: China"

The second game available for free is "Assassin's Creed Chronicles: China" a side-scrolling spin-off of the popular "Assassin's Creed" series.

When it first came out in April 2015, it received middling reviews, but it certainly boasts a gorgeous art style and a compelling setting that's yet to be explored in the full-blown "Assassin's Creed" series thus far.

Platforms: Xbox One

Availability: September 16 to October 15

"Forza Horizon"

"Forza Horizon" is one of the most beloved racing games in recent memory. With the September 27 release date for "Forza Horizon 3" just around the corner, now's a great time to catch up.

Featuring around 300 different cars and a large open world, "Forza Horizon" is definitely worth checking out if you missed it when it first came out on Xbox 360. 

Platforms: Xbox 360, Xbox One

Availability: September 1 to September 15

In an interview with The Guardian earlier this year, Helen Mirren discussed how the 1970s were a grotesquely sexist time in acting and elsewhere, calling the decade "horrible" and "worse than the 1940s or '50s."

Mirren alluded to an appearance she made on Michael Parkinson's talk show in 1975 as one personal example of the decade's sexism, and a video of the old interview has surfaced recently. 

When Parkinson introduced Mirren, 30, on his show, he listed off a series of comments from theater critics about her body, including a quotation about how Mirren was "especially telling in projecting sluttish eroticism."

Mirren countered the distasteful introduction by walking to her chair and joking, "That was sluttishly erotic for you."

But Parkinson's sexist remarks continued. 

At one point, the host stumbled through a question about whether Mirren thought her body held her back from being a "serious actress."

"Because serious actresses can’t have big bosoms, is that what you mean?" Mirren shot back. "What a crummy performance if people are obsessed with the size of your bosom or anything else."

When Parkinson later asked Mirren about the men who interested her at the Royal Shakespeare Company where she worked, Mirren responded, "I strongly dislike men who look another way, like men in very nicely cut suits," while looking at Parkinson, who was wearing a suit. 

Though the interview did cover topics other than overly direct questions about Mirren's body and love interests, Parkinson ended the discussion by asking Mirren about her nude scenes.

"It’s a male chauvinist kind of..." Mirren said, beginning to describe the process of men directing nude scenes, before quipping to Parkinson, "You’ve heard that phrase before, I’m sure."

Watch the interview below: 

SEE ALSO: 26 sexist ads of the 'Mad Men' era that companies wish we'd forget

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The creator of Pokémon Go, Niantic Labs, has a new way to block people from using bots and third-party trackers to get ahead in the game.

Hackers have combed through the game's most recent update and found new references to captchas, which are commonly used on the web to thwart bots and spammers.

While Niantic doesn't appear to have started using captchas to catch cheaters yet, one Pokémon Go bot creator told Business Insider that it's only a matter of time before bots and other unofficial hacks stop working.

"This will be really tough to crack," said Steven Bartell, who helped created an advanced bot called Insta-PokéGo that has been used to catch 3.3 million Pokémon in less than a week. Bartell said the Insta-PokéGo website will be shut down on Wednesday to keep people who have used the tool from getting banned.

The creator of FastPokeMap, a popular website that shows where Pokémon spawn on a map, recently tweeted that the site may be shut down as well due to the game's new security measures:

Steven Bartell of Insta-PokéGo said that, while the introduction of captchas will most certainly keep bots like his from working, the fate of trackers like FastPokeMap is uncertain.

"No one is sure whether mapping trackers will be affected because it really depends on how Niantic deploys the captcha," he said. "If they only use it when players spin a Pokéstop or try to catch a Pokémon, maps could be fine. If they are smarter about it and deploy the captcha when they see any sort of suspicious behavior, the maps could be in trouble too."

Niantic was not immediately available for comment.

SEE ALSO: 6 mistakes you're probably still making in Pokémon GO

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NOW WATCH: These are the hardest Pokemon to catch in Pokemon Go

Netflix (the real one) isn't too worried about the so-called "Netflix of North Korea" that was announced last week.

State-run North Korean media unveiled a new set-top box last Tuesday called "Manbang" — which translates to "everywhere" or "every direction" — that purportedly beams propaganda-on-demand to homes inside the Hermit Kingdom.

It's basically like an Apple TV with the Netflix app installed, except Manbang has far fewer viewing options with only five channels, none of which include the hit "Stranger Things." There's some debate among North Korea-watchers as to whether the device simply streams live television channels, or if it actually plays what a user requests on demand.

Still, Netflix doesn't seem to mind the somewhat spurious comparison. When asked what the service thought of its new competitor, Netflix told Business Insider: "We are bummed we didn't think of that name first."

It also changed its Twitter bio on Wednesday to give all credit to Manbang for its innovation:

SEE ALSO: Meet the group trying to take down North Korea with USB sticks

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NOW WATCH: It's going to be a bad year for the iPhone — here's why

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Google is investing heavily in virtual reality (VR) programming for the release of its Daydream VR platform, which is set to launch in the coming weeks, according to Bloomberg.

Daydream has been broadly designated as the runway on which Google’s hardware and software VR plans will take off. The project is now referred to in more specific terms as Google's mobile platform for housing VR apps, videos, games and other content. 

Early this week, Google launched its latest Android operating system (OS), Nougat, which renders phones, headsets and controllers Daydream-compatible. Daydream devices will feature an Android VR Mode enabling users to explore VR versions of Google’s native apps like YouTube, Street View, the Google Play Store, Play Movies and Google Photos. Along with special VR versions of these apps, Daydream's debut will be accompanied by new Android phones and VR headsets and controllers.

Google has also been working with an array of third-party creators and developers to produce content for Daydream. The company has enlisted the help of gaming companies like Ubisoft and Electronic Arts, teamed up with film and TV producers like Netflix, HBO, Hulu, Lionsgate, and IMAX, partnered with sports league like the NBA and MLB, and recruited filmmakers and YouTube stars to create VR apps, games, and video content for Daydream. Sticking to Google's open-source spirit, not all of this content will be exclusive to Google, with Hulu set to release VR video content on its own platforms in unison with Daydream's launch.  

Daydream could be a turning point in VR, pushing adoption of VR technologies closer towards a critical mass, because:

• Google is focused on mobile-based VR. Unlike some of its competitors in VR, Google is less intent on building consoles or headsets, and more focused on establishing Daydream (its mobile phones, Android VR) as the dominant interface for VR. Google doesn’t mind if users snap on third-party visors or headsets (it even released the designs for its Daydream headset for others to emulate), just as long as they’re using the hardware with Daydream. 
• Android is the runaway global leader in mobile OS. At the end of last year, Android controlled around 79% of the global smartphone install base, according to Tomi Ahonen's 2016 Almanac. Meanwhile, mobile developers are increasingly favoring Android over iOS as their primary platform, according to a new VisionMobile report covered by BI Intelligence last week.
• A content-based strategy will drive word-of-mouth referrals. Google is encouraging creators to make VR content so as to drive excitement for Daydream. Releasing a mélange of VR content will appeal to a varied audience and a wider range of interests. To this end the company is not being profligate with its spending, allocating five to six figures for each content initiative – a paucity compared to the $21.5 billion that Google earned last quarter – enabling it to cast its content net wide and see what sticks.

Advertisers, meanwhile, should be excited about the opportunities presented by Daydream, and VR more broadly, as it:

• Opens a massive opportunity for VR ads to flourish. Studies suggest that consumers engage with VR ads at a staggeringly higher rate than ads in mobile and desktop apps. VR ads drove 12 new app installs for every 1,000 video ad views, based on research by the VR marketing platform Immersv cited in Venture Beat. This is compared with industry averages of 1% for mobile and 0.4% for desktop, as stated in Innovid’s 2016 Global Video Benchmarks.
• Creates an entirely new way to reach and engage with consumers. VR is the next step in the evolution of media screens and consumer touchpoints. It will enable new forms of creativity, immersive storytelling, and ways to connect with potential customers, via an advertising medium that consumers might actually enjoy. In a study of 1300 consumers, more than half of respondents said they were more likely to make purchases from a brand using VR, according to GreenlightVR. 

The tech industry has promoted the prospect of VR for the past few decades. But only now, with headsets backed by big names like Sony and Facebook, is VR finally becoming a concrete product with mass market potential. While VR technology is largely associated with the gaming industry, the platform offers a new set of content opportunities in entertainment, advertising, and more.

But where is it all going?

Margaret Boland, research analyst for BI Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service, has compiled a detailed report on virtual reality content that examines how various VR headset categories will shape VR content development and looks at the trajectory for mobile gaming revenues to get a sense of how spending on VR content might develop. The report also lays out what types of content users and developers can expect on VR platforms, including gaming, video entertainment, and advertising.

Here are some key takeaways from the report:

• VR headset manufacturers are driving both the development and distribution of VR content by investing significant technical and monetary resources in developers, in an effort to build up an exclusive content library.
• High demand for VR headsets by mobile and console gamers will fuel demand for VR content. The VR content market will take an increasing portion of the mobile gaming software industry.
• Beyond gaming, VR video entertainment will remain short form until demand for VR headsets increases.
• Ads featured on VR headsets will likely have higher view-through rates than standard video ad spots.
• Other industries are also beginning to experiment with VR content. Travel companies, publishers, e-commerce merchants, and social platforms are beginning to see potential in this new category.
• VR content faces major hurdles that could keep developers from investing: The VR experience must be good enough for people to take up the devices. In addition, developers need to know that a sufficient user base exists to be worthy of the resource investment in VR content.

In full, the report:

• Provides a breakdown of each type of VR headset, what platforms they run on, and how content will differ for each.
• Includes estimates for global VR headset shipments by category.
• Includes a mobile gaming forecast to give a sense of the most important market that will drive spending on VR content in the next five years.
• Lays out what other industries are developing VR programs.
• Discusses some of the potential barriers that could dissuade developers from investing in VR content.

To get your copy of this invaluable guide to the VR universe, choose one of these options:

1. Subscribe to an ALL-ACCESS Membership with BI Intelligence and gain immediate access to this report AND over 100 other expertly researched deep-dive reports, subscriptions to all of our daily newsletters, and much more. >> START A MEMBERSHIP
2. Purchase the report and download it immediately from our research store. >> BUY THE REPORT

The choice is yours. But however you decide to acquire this report, you’ve given yourself a powerful advantage in your understanding of the world of VR.

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There’s a myth going around that music geeks are essential to good music curation.

It’s an attractive idea. Just look at BuzzFeed writer Reggie Ugwu’s glowing feature on the “small teams of anonymous, hardcore music fans [racing] to solve the record industry’s toughest problem.”

Indeed, Pandora, Apple, Spotify, Tidal, Google Play, and the rest bend over backwards to make clear how much they rely on music experts, and there seems to be no worse slander than saying a competitor is dependent on algorithms.

But do you really need a human to pick your music? In a world when we increasingly trust AI to pick our movies, dating options, email replies, scheduling, and much more? Don't believe it.

Consider the range of human involvement in streaming music:

—On radio (e.g., Beats 1), human experts have total control over what you hear.

—On handmade playlists at Apple Music and Spotify, human experts choose tracks and track order, while AI recommends different playlists

—On handmade stations at Google Play, humans experts choose tracks, while AI recommends different stations and personalizes track order.

—On custom radio at Pandora, humans experts help categorize music, while AI chooses what you hear on any given station. On custom radio elsewhere, human experts have little-to-no involvement.

—On algorithmically generated playlists like Spotify’s Discover Weekly, humans experts have little-to-no involvement.

So how important are human music experts?

Well, radio can be fun, but it isn’t blowing anyway away, which is why everyone is moving to streaming music services in the first place.

As for the rest, there’s little evidence that handmade playlists are better than handmade stations or that either are better than custom radio or algorithmically generated playlists. There’s personal opinion, of course, and some people love Spotify or Apple Music’s handmade playlists, but plenty of people, including many music geeks, love the other options, too.

Personally, I subscribe to Google Play Music and listen primarily to custom radio and albums, recommended for me by AI. After testing all the options, I firmly believe it's as good or better than the alternatives. Indeed, I'd rather listen to an infinitely personalizable feed of music than a limited set of handmade playlists.

The only data BuzzFeed cites for the popularity of handmade playlists is that 50% of Spotify users listen to them: so what? I wouldn’t expect anything else in an app that puts those playlists front and center. No doubt Google Play users listen to a lot of stations and Pandora users listen to a lot of custom radio.

Notably, the most popular product from the past year was Discover Weekly, which amazed millions of users by understanding their preferences on a deep level. Discover Weekly does all that with little-to-no human involvement, predicting what you’ll like through big data analysis of how your listening habits compare to other people’s listening habits.

All signs point to more stuff like this in our future. Apple's big new feature this year is a Discover Weekly knockoff called Discovery Mix. Pretty much everyone is talking about getting deeper into personalized recommendations, which inevitably means recommendations that depend more on AI. Even Pandora has steadily shifted away from human-powered labeling in favor of big data analysis.

Music geeks still help, adding a meaningful personal touch here and there and making sure the algorithms are running smoothly, but they matter less and less.

SEE ALSO: How to know if a robot is taking over your job

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NOW WATCH: This new update in 'Pokémon GO' will change how you play the game

With so many great games coming out all the time, it's easy for things to get lost in the shuffle. Many of the biggest game releases these days ask players to spend dozens (if not hundreds) of hours with them, so there just isn't enough time to see everything.

Thankfully, games go on sale all the time. If you check the storefronts on Steam, PlayStation 4, or Xbox One every week, you're sure to find that a great game from two years ago has gone down to $15. Here are the best recent games that you should play if you haven't:

"The Witcher III: Wild Hunt"

This obviously isn't some obscure indie game. "The Witcher III" won several Game of the Year awards in 2015, but plenty of people (myself included) skipped it when it came out.

Maybe we felt we wouldn't like it because we hadn't played its predecessors, or maybe we didn't have time to dive into a huge open-world RPG when it came out. If you skipped it for any reason, fix that as soon as possible. "The Witcher III" is a genuine achievement in video game writing.

Imagine if every random side quest in "Skyrim" had the same level of care put into it as the main story. That's "The Witcher III," a game in which something as innocuous as finding materials for an armorsmith can turn into a multihour journey with emotional twists and turns.

The main game can be found on sale for about $30 or less pretty often, and a complete edition with all of the downloadable add-ons is launching on August 31 for $50.

Platforms: PS4, Xbox One, PC

"Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor"

Again, this was a Game of the Year contender back in 2014, but the "Lord of the Rings" connection and generic-looking main character may have turned some people off of what is a pretty fantastic action game.

You don't need to know or care about Tolkien's fantasy universe to enjoy this. It's an open-world game that plays a lot like "Assassin's Creed," meaning you can take on Orc encampments with acrobatics and stealth, and it plays like a dream.

It's super fun to just run around the world killing Orcs, which is great because the story is inconsequential. The Nemesis System ensures that you'll build rivalries with Orcs that you kill (and Orcs that kill you), so the game kind of generates little stores for you. It's really cool.

Most important, I got it for $10 earlier this year. It's on sale constantly.

Platforms: PS4, Xbox One, Xbox 360, PS3, PC

"Wolfenstein: The New Order"

1992's "Wolfenstein 3D" is widely thought of as the granddaddy of all first-person shooters, but its sequels (while good) have largely failed to make the same impact on video games.

2014's "Wolfenstein: The New Order" isn't revolutionary in any sense, but it is one of the best shooters in recent memory. Set in an alternate 1960s in which the Nazis won World War II and rule the world with robotic dogs, you can use stealth or dual wield shotguns and assault rifles to mow down the Nazi scum who stand in your way.

It also has a strangely personal, introspective story with some excellent characters, making it refreshing among other hyperviolent shooters.

You can find this one on sale for $30 or less fairly often.

Platforms: PS4, Xbox One, PC

When you're watching live sports, sometimes the action is happening so quickly that it can be easy to miss a crucial moment.

That's where highlight reels come in, to help focus your attention on something incredible you may have missed the first time around.

The same thing happens in the popular online multiplayer shooter "Overwatch."

Every match in the 6v6 competitive shooter ends by highlighting a particularly amazing play from a single player; sometimes, it will focus on an offensive character getting a string of several kills in rapid succession, but it might focus on a player preventing an enemy from causing a lot of harm, too.

This highlight reel is called the "Play of the Game," and every player in the match watches this play after the match ends as a way to celebrate someone's skills. There's nothing quite like the thrill of being singled out for your performance during a tough match.

Wait, play of the what now? Please explain.

If you've never seen one of these highlights, here's a Play of the Game that shows someone playing as the character Soldier: 76, killing nearly the entire opposing team in a short amount of time:

And here's a collection of highlights for the character Mercy, who has a powerful ability that can resurrect her fallen teammates and shift the tide of battle:

Got it. So who decides who deserves Play of the Game?

The answer, as it turns out, is pretty complicated.

"There’s no simple formula. There’s a complicated formula with lots of exceptions [laughs]," said Overwatch director Jeff Kaplan in an interview with Game Informer. "Mostly what’s going on is the game tracks an internal score for each player at each second of the game, and it looks for windows where player scores spike tremendously."

Depending on your character's role — whether they're good at attacking other players or defending allies — these scores will be calculated slightly differently.

Additionally, Kaplan said scores are weighted more heavily if the action's taking place near an important match objective, like a base or capture point.

"There’s weighting and multipliers going on depending on what the match status is," he said.

Kaplan doesn't think the formula is perfect, however. The Play of the Game will sometimes focus on the wrong character by accident.

"The great example is the one that everybody laughs at when Torbjörn’s turrets get Play of the Game and he’s off hammering a wall, or even worse when he’s just lying there dead," said Kaplan.

One of the clips Kaplan is referring to is one that shows the character Torbjörn dead on the ground while all sorts of action is happening around him. This character can build defensive turrets that persist even after he dies, so the game was recognizing that these turrets were racking up a ton of kills, but the camera stayed focused on his dead body rather than on the action itself.

The stagnant camera mixed with the triumphant victory music is, as you might expect, hilarious.

"That’s an obvious one where we want to do some camera work to feature what actually caused the Play of the Game to happen," said Kaplan. "We think we have a lot of ideas on that front and we want to evolve the camera work."

While it's probably better for the integrity of Overwatch to focus on actually spectacular moments, I can't help but be a little sad that the unintentionally hilarious Plays of the Game might be going away.

So, now that you know how Play of the Game is calculated, will you change your tactics to try to make the highlight reel focus on you? If you do, just remember that the most important aspect of "Overwatch" is teamwork. Don't be a selfish Sally.

Or, worse yet, don't be a Cersei Lannister.

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Here's what happens when you order something on Amazon Prime Now

After Donald Trump recently made his pitch to black voters by telling them, "What the hell do you have to lose?" TBS's "Conan," hosted by Conan O'Brien, imagined what the Republican candidate would say in an outrageous parody election ad targeted to African-Americans.

Earlier this month, Trump tried to appeal to black voters with generalized comments about the state of their lives: "You're living in poverty. Your schools are no good. You have no jobs. Fifty-eight percent of your youth is unemployed."

Critics have called his comments generally tone-deaf and ignorant.

So "Conan" jumped on the opportunity to imagine what Trump would say in an election ad targeted to black voters. The show doubles down on the stereotypes and generalizations of African-American life.

For example, the parody promises positions in the White House for '90s music group Bell Biv Devoe. The Trump in the ad says that when he's president, "every prince will be fresh." He'll create a new time zone for "colored-people time." And he promises that black people will get their own bathrooms and water fountains.

Finally, the parody's tagline is, "Make America Grape Again."

Watch the outrageous parody below:

SEE ALSO: Stephen Colbert investigates a notorious Republican conspiracy theory about Hillary Clinton

DON'T MISS: Seth Meyers explains why Hillary Clinton's new email scandal isn't as bad as you think

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NOW WATCH: 'She's a bigot' — Watch Trump slam Clinton over minority rights

After a long day of work, I got back to my apartment on Wednesday evening looking to unwind. My girlfriend was out for drinks with her friends and wouldn't be back for a few hours, so I decided to boot up my PlayStation 4 and play something.

Earlier this month, I'd plopped down $20 on "Abzû," a beautiful game that was released earlier this month for PlayStation 4 and PC.

Matt Nava, the creative director on “Abzû,” was also the art director behind “Journey,” which is one of my favorite games and one of the most beautiful PlayStation games ever made. So I was very excited to finally try "Abzû."

Less than two hours later, the credits were rolling, and I was incredibly satisfied.

Here's a glimpse at what you can expect from "Abzû."

SEE ALSO: The former Prime Minister of Poland loves this video game so much he gave it to Obama as a gift

In "Abzû," you play a scuba diver who's exploring the depths of the sea.

You'll encounter wondrous creatures that will swim and play with you.

You'll swim with dolphins.

Since its debut back in 2014, "Silicon Valley" has sparked debate on who in the tech world inspired the show's motley crew of characters. Richard is Mark Zuckerberg. Erlich is Sean Parker. Laurie is Marissa Mayer, and so on.

Nelson "Big Head" Bighetti, played by Josh Brener, has remained a mystery.

He climbed the ranks at Google-inspired tech giant Hooli to become "cohead dreamer" of the moonshot division; landed a profile in Wired (for real); and went on to acquire Pied Piper. But Big Head did it all with the technical acumen of a first-year computer-science student, and even that might be generous. His job for much of season three involved idling on a roof.

He is, as Brener describes, the "manifestation of tai chi, just blowing in the wind."

Who of the tech elite could possibly inspire such a dud?

Big Head is actually an amalgamation of Silicon Valley has-beens.

When a startup is acquired by a major company, the founders are sometimes relegated to do nothing. They run out their contracts wandering campus while their equity vests.

"As far as I know, Big Head was inspired by a number of different real-life stories where people were basically in the situation of being unassigned to any project — basically being fired without being fired," Brener tells Business Insider, adding that there was no one-to-one comparison.

There is one surprising source of inspiration for Big Head that has nothing to do with the valley: the main character of the 1979 dark comedy, "Being There."

Watch the trailer below.

In the film, Chauncey Gardiner (played by Peter Sellers) fakes his way to financial and political prominence after being kicked off the estate where he has worked as a gardener his whole life. His simple words about gardens and the weather are often mistaken for profound metaphors, and most of his knowledge comes from what he sees on TV. Still, he excels.

"In the early episodes of 'Silicon Valley,' I had no idea what Big Head would go on to achieve in all of his glory. So, it was as much a surprise to me," Brener says, "but I definitely went back and looked at Chauncey Gardiner after the fact and tried to pick up a couple pointers."

He remembers the show's writers telling him, "Hey, if you're going to steal, steal from the best."

"Being There" has since become one of his favorite movies.

SEE ALSO: Season 3 of 'Silicon Valley' was almost completely different

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NOW WATCH: These real-life robocops are patrolling the streets of Silicon Valley

"Pokémon Go" is the most popular mobile game in the world. China is the largest mobile gaming market, and the most populous country on Earth.

Bizarrely, the most popular mobile game in the world isn't available in China. Huh?

The game also isn't available in South Korea, the fourth largest market in the world for mobile gaming. So, what gives?

Surprisingly, it's because of Google and the way that "Pokémon Go" is so tightly integrated with Google's services. First and foremost, you login to "Pokémon Go" using Google:

But even if you circumvent that with a Pokémon Trainer Club login, the game itself relies on Google Maps data to power the game's maps. But Google Services doesn't operate in China. As of November 2012, China officially blocks all Google Services. This is the so-called "Great Firewall" of China: a means of censoring the internet deployed by the Chinese government. 

In this case, the Great Firewall is keeping out Pikachu — and keeping the game's creator, Niantic Labs, from earning millions in the largest gaming market in the world.

"'Pokémon Go' relies on Google Services for the game to run correctly," Daniel Ahmad, a Chinese games industry analyst with Niko Partners, told Business Insider in an email exchange. "The game itself uses Google Maps as the game world and all the various Pokéstops/Gyms are stored in Google servers."

In short: Since "Pokémon Go" is an online-only game, and one that's dependent on Google Services functioning to do literally anything, it isn't heading to China anytime soon.

Chinese gamers aren't ignorant of the game's existence, of course. 

An online survey conducted by Niko Partners, an analytics firm that specializes in the Chinese gaming market, found that people were taking to dubious workarounds for getting "Pokémon Go" working in China. Here's what the survey found (emphasis ours):

"Within two days of the global launch of the iOS version we surveyed consumers to see whether they know the game 'Pokémon Go.' This was a self-selecting survey, meaning we did not have any screening criteria for participants. If they wanted to answer, they could answer.

Within a couple of days we had 350 respondents. Of those, more than 60% said they know of the game. In addition, 48% said they have tried to play the official game via convoluted efforts. Only 11% of the 350 said they were able to play, and 37% said they were not able to despite their efforts."

The "convoluted efforts" noted here primarily consist of using a service called a "VPN" ("virtual private network") that acts as a virtual mask, hiding the true location of your device.

You log in to it, and then you log into the internet through it, thus subverting any gates you'd normally encounter on your local internet connection. People use services like this to, say, watch Netflix in a country where it isn't offered. But a VPN can also be used to play online games. Alas, even with a VPN, there are other issues that Chinese gamers will face — with no Google Maps data available for parts of China, it's possible that no PokéStops or Gyms will be anywhere nearby.

South Korea faces a similar issue with "Pokémon Go," albeit for different reasons.

Google and the South Korean government are in a protracted battle over access to the country's map data. The South Korean government cites security reasons, specifically regarding North Korea, for not granting access. Google calls it preferential treatment for the South Korean mapping companies that lead the market there.

As the the Wall Street Journal  explains, "Google’s domestic Korean rivals, Naver and Kakao Corp., only use government-supplied maps that already have had sensitive installations blurred or camouflaged. Google representatives contend that the national-security laws in South Korea unfairly benefit local competitors in the country of about 50 million people. The government maintains that national security is the laws’ sole purpose."

In the case of South Korea, the fourth largest gaming market in the world (by revenue according to Newzoo), Niantic could create a workaround: use another mapping service. Partnering with Naver or Kakao could solve the issue, though it may also require a tremendous amount of work.

Regardless, with evidence of the "Pokémon Go" phenomenon wearing off, Niantic (and its investors at Google, Nintendo, and The Pokémon Company) assuredly want to push into two of the world's four biggest game markets. Now, the only question is how.

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Frank Ocean made an enterprising move to independently release his new album "Blonde" on Saturday without the involvement of his former label Def Jam or Universal Music Group (UMG), its parent company. But as Billboard reports, the R&B singer's crafty and potentially lucrative manuever could get him sued. 

Ocean reportedly fulfilled his recording contract with Def Jam on Friday by releasing a visual album, "Endless," on Apple Music. In doing so, Ocean freed himself up to release "Blonde" — his proper second album, which critics are lauding— as an Apple Music exclusive the next day, through his new independent label called Boys Don't Cry.

According to Billboard, Ocean's strategy has "increased his potential profit share from 14 percent to 70 percent" for the sales and streaming of "Blonde," which is on track to earn 225,000 to 250,000 equivalent album units and debut at No. 1 on the Billboard album chart. 

As a result, UMG has missed out on the long-awaited work of one of its hottest artists. Stuck with "Endless," a visual album that isn't for sale, Universal stands to lose a significant profit.

One source has speculated to Billboard that UMG may have grounds to sue Ocean, though other sources close to the situation at Def Jam have told the outlet that "no legal action against Ocean is currently being considered."

The one-day window between "Endless" and "Blonde" would likely be UMG's foremost point of legal contention with Ocean. As Billboard notes, most standard recording contracts have "minimum-delivery clauses," wherein an artist can only fulfill his or her contract by delivering albums within a set time frame and at "a label-acceptable level of quality."

In other words, it's very possibly Ocean violated his contract by releasing another album on the heels of his last delivered for Def Jam.

Nonetheless, Ocean's controversial move has certainly made waves in the industry and brought more scrutiny to the concept of streaming exclusives for artists. 

According to a report from music industry insider Bob Lefsetz, UMG has effectively banned streaming exclusives following the release of "Blonde."

As The Verge notes, the prospect of influential artists leaving the major-label system for streaming services has long frightened labels and could "cause a power shift that the industry hasn’t experienced since iTunes hit the scene in 2003."

UMG has not yet responded to a request for comment from Business Insider.

SEE ALSO: Frank Ocean debuts 'Blonde,' his 1st album in 4 years

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"The Blair Witch Project" came out in 1999, and completely captivated the country. Its "found footage" style done on an ultra-low budget of around $60,000 ended up making $248.6 million worldwide over its box-office lifetime.

Finally, there's a new sequel to the modern horror classic.

Yes, there was the forgettable "Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2," but that was really a sequel in name only.

Horror director Adam Wingard ("You're Next," "The Guest") has gone back to the woods where the original took place to follow a new group of kids in search of the Blair Witch.

In fact, Lionsgate, which is releasing the movie, revealed only recently that the movie is, in fact, a sequel to "The Blair Witch Project."

Up until this year's San Diego Comic-Con, the movie was titled "The Woods." People who attended the screening at Comic-Con still had no clue what the movie was really about when they showed up to the theater.

But then people began to understand that it was a "Blair Witch" sequel, which led to social media exploding after the screening. And Wingard did reveal that the movie is really titled "Blair Witch."

Those who have seen it say that the movie is scary and a great continuation of the Blair Witch story. You can see for yourself when the movie opens on September 16.

Here's the trailer, from Collider:

SEE ALSO: 'The Rock' is now the highest-paid actor in the world — here's who he beat out

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You won't see or hear Sarah Jessica Parker on ads for EpiPen manufacturer Mylan after the company revealed it was raising the cost of the emergency allergy injector to more than $500, a 500% price hike since the product's introduction in 2007.

The "Sex and the City" star was a spokeswoman for the company's "Anaphylaxis for Reel" campaign, which sought to bring awareness to its anaphylactic shock products, including the EpiPen.

She is also a customer. She purchases the EpiPen for her son, James Wilkie, in case of emergency reactions as a result of his peanut allergy.

Parker posted her statement about cutting ties with the company on Instagram Thursday. In it, she said that she is "disappointed, saddened, and deeply concerned" about the company's price hike.

The price hike, which was revealed on Wednesday, resulted in furious reactions from the public and political leaders, including Hillary Clinton. At first, Mylan said the price increase was partly a result of President Barack Obama and the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare.

Mylan then announced it would be implementing new measures that would bring the cost down for patients, including $300 coupons and increasing income assistance in buying the medication.

SEE ALSO: Not everyone is buying into Mylan's EpiPen price plan

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Warning: Major spoilers ahead if you haven't seen "Star Wars: The Force Awakens."

With Rey in "The Force Awakens," "Star Wars" added another strong female hero to its universe.

But a dark theory suggests Rey might not be a hero at all.

Instead, she could be the franchise's newest villain.

The question of Rey's parentage was one of the biggest mysteries surrounding the newest "Star Wars" and could help explain her natural ability to use the Force with so little training, while Luke Skywalker had to endure Yoda's trials in the original trilogy. 

But all we can do is assume Rey is Luke's daughter for now and wait until later episodes fill us in.

In the meantime, this theory compiled by Uproxx uses the information given in "The Force Awakens" film and novelization. The film shows how easy it is for Rey to use the Force and the novelization, which is canon, says during her and Kylo Ren's climactic battle that she heard a voice from the dark side that told her to kill Kylo Ren.

And like Anakin Skywalker aka Darth Vader, Rey suffered a very troubled childhood and is full of anger and fear over the death of her father figure Han Solo.

Most convincing of all, the video explainer points out how in the "Force Awakens" poster, Rey's staff lines up perfectly with Kylo Ren's red lightsaber — the kind members of the Sith use — meaning Rey is literally positioned to take over using the Sith's weapon and therefore become a member of the dark side.

Outside of this theory, the idea that Rey is tied to the dark side is hinted at in John Williams' compositions. Her theme is a lighter, reversed version of Darth Vader's famous "Imperial March."

Try to pick your jaw up off the floor and watch the full theory explainer:

SEE ALSO: Here's everything we know about the upcoming 'Star Wars' movie, 'Rogue One'

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Ryan Lochte is reportedly trading his Speedos for dancing shoes for a spot on the upcoming season of ABC's "Dancing With the Stars."

Several news outlets report that the 32-year-old Olympic swimmer will join the reality dance competition's 23rd season.

A show insider told People that "Ryan has wanted to be on the show for years."

Another source told the magazine that Lochte could be a frontrunner on the show, which hasn't officially named the season's cast yet.

A show representative told Business Insider that ABC doesn't comment on casting rumors. The cast will be announced on the August 30 episode of "Good Morning America."

This wouldn't be Lochte's first reality show. He previously starred on the E! reality show "What Would Ryan Lochte Do?" It was universally panned by critics and canceled after one season.

The new "DWTS" headlines are probably a welcome change for Lochte. The 12-time Olympic medalist is suffering from the fallout of creating an international debacle after lying to Rio and Olympic authorities about him and three fellow Team USA swimmers being robbed at gunpoint during a night out on the city.

Instead, the swimmer has admitted that they were confronted by an armed security guard after vandalizing a gas station bathroom.

Since Lochte's fabrication, all four of his sponsors dropped him.

He will also face possible sanctions from the US Olympic Committee, in addition to further investigation by Brazilian officials.

SEE ALSO: One of the 4 American swimmers apologized for the 'serious distraction' he caused at a gas station in Rio and admitted he 'omitted facts'

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In late 2011, with Spain mired in nationwide economic malaise, a town north of Madrid learned it didn't have the funds to hold a key part of its annual festival: the bull run. 

Rather than scrap the event entirely, the town's mayor, Javier de los Nietos,hit upon another, cost-effective solution.

Residents of the town of Mataelpino replaced the bulls that charged after revelers with a 10-foot wide, 440-pound polystyrene ball, creating the boloencierro, a combination of the Spanish words "bolo," or ball, and "encierro," or bull run.

The boloencierro took advantage of the winding, up-and-down street layout of the town of 1,700 people, which is about 3,700 feet above sea level in the hills outside the Spanish capital.

The town hosted its sixth iteration of the boloencierro in 2016 (the ball broke in half this year), and previous years have already given the town a boost in tourism. The event has won Mataelpino publicity from as far afield as China and Japan. In Spain alone, four other towns will host versions of Mataelpino's boloencierro this year. 

While it doesn't have the same dangers as running with actual bulls, injuries can still happen during the boloencierro. In addition to cuts and scrapes from falls, those who don't dodge the bolo can be knocked down and concussed.

"You feel very small, and you have to keep your wits about you," de los Nietos told El País, "because if the boulder cracks you on the back, it can push you against the walls or onto the ground."

Count animal-rights groups are among those who welcome the new take on an old tradition.

"Each year, people are gored or trampled while they run with the bulls," PETA told Cronica Norte in 2014. 

"Boloencierro is fun, for all the family and a great alternative for the growing number of people who oppose bullfighting and bull runs," said the group, which also offered to cover the costs for other towns in Spain and Portugal that replaced the traditional bull run with a ball run.

The prevalence of bullfights has declined in recent years, particularly in Spain, where the event has attracted public protests as well as political and financial pressure from municipal governments. 

Despite boloencierroes being hailed as an alternative to regular encierros, to Mayor de los Nietos, this version will be no substitute for the real thing. "It’s not something that divides bullfighting aficionados from opponents: in fact it brings them both together; everybody enjoys the party," he told El País.

SEE ALSO: Pablo Escobar may be long gone, but his hippos are still causing problems for Colombia

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